Governing Cambodia's Forests: The International Politics of Policy Reform.

• Author: Ear, Sophal
• Position: Book review

Governing Cambodia's Forests: The International Politics of Policy Reform. By Andrew Cock. Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Press, 2016. Softcover: 302pp.

Cambodia's Second Kingdom: Nation, Imagination, and Democracy. By Astrid Noren-Nilsson. Ithaca, New York: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2016. Softcover: 228pp.

Aside from being books on contemporary Cambodian politics, Andrew Cock's Governing Cambodia's Forests: The International Politics of Policy Reform and Astrid Noren-Nilsson's Cambodia's Second Kingdom: Nation, Imagination, and Democracy both share a common link: David Chandler. Chandler, the original Cambodianist, wrote the foreword to Noren-Nilsson's book and proffered a generous blurb to Cock's. Stylistically and methodologically, however, they diverge. Cock's book came about as part of his work as a forestry policy advisor (and formed the basis of his doctorate) at NGO Forum, an umbrella non-profit organization based in Cambodia, for four years in the early 2000s. This gave him an incredible vantage point, but also raised questions about how that work influenced his research, which he fully acknowledges: "generates biases and interests that colour perceptions of issues and the way they are analyzed. Observations risk becoming politicized in a way that clouds their objectivity and judgement" (p. xii). Noren-Nilsson's use of elite interviews, done for her doctoral dissertation, offers a window into the soul of Cambodian politicians.

Cock's book hones in on the idea of norm penetration, namely "how norms of appropriate state practice spread throughout the international system" (p. xi); more specifically "why international initiatives aimed at improving the management and conservation of tropical forests have achieved so little in curtailing the rate at which forest areas continue to be logged and converted into other land uses" and "second ... the inexorable penetration of peripheral terrestrial spaces throughout the 500 years since the international system first co-evolved in conjunction with one of its central modern features--the sovereign territorial state" (p. 2). Here, Cock means how the norms of the Westphalian state have not actually penetrated Cambodia's forests.

Cock argues that "externally promoted reform agendas are often manipulated by ruling elites in targeted states" (p. 6), in other words, why reform agendas are captured. Second, "Although forestry policy reforms failed to achieve their...